


A Certain Step Toward Falling In Love

by OriginalCeenote, YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Background Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2018, F/M, Happy Ending, POV Natasha Romanov, References to Jane Austen, background clint barton/laura barton - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 09:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14808470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/pseuds/OriginalCeenote, https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: She says, “Steve,” but then someone says, “Welcome!”Steve screams. Nat punches something soft and the someone goes oof. A light shines bright into her eye. The light flickers into her other eye before shining over Steve too and if she’d jumped out of the cab when she’d wanted to, she’d be through security now instead of fearing for her eyesight.“Man, what the hell,” the someone groans. The light scatters on the gravel driveway as the someone straightens up.“I’m so sorry,” Nat says, after Steve elbows her. “Are you okay?”The someone points the light at their chin and their face illuminates. Their eyebrows are heavily unamused.The someone says, “They told me I’d take some hits doing this kind of work, but I thought they meant financial.”“She took a karate class in third grade,” Steve says. It’s hard to tell whether or not he’s laughing at her.“Yes, well, I can tell.” The someone looks between them, then sighs. “Are you Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff?” Steve nods. “I’m Samuel Wilson. Welcome to Pemberley.”_______________SamNat modern AU, set in London at a Jane Austen convention and New York. Nat's POV.





	A Certain Step Toward Falling In Love

________________________________________________

 

Nat opens the envelope, scans the contents quickly, and flings it at Steve’s face. It bounces off his nose and drops anticlimactically onto the table between them.

“Hell no Rogers. Isn’t this what you have a boyfriend for?”

“Bucky’s working a case,” Steve says. He pulls an exaggerated frown. “So I thought, who else but my second oldest friend?”

“You’ll get nowhere by insulting my age,” she replies, pushing her chair back from the table. “I’m not going to a Jane Austen convention with you. You realize I have a stack of papers on the Odyssey to grade next week, right?”

“It’s spring break,” Steve says incredulously. “We all know you grade them last minute.”

“It’s spring break on Friday and I do _not.”_

He shuffles around her in his cramped kitchen and takes a yogurt out of the fridge. “Do _so,_ and you know I know it, so you can drop that.”

One time. She’d let him crash at her house _one time_ four years ago and he still won’t let her live that down. Nat narrows her eyes at him. He just smiles wide.

“How does Bucky put up with you,” Nat says.

“I’m, like, pretty amazing in bed,” Steve says, eating a spoonful of yogurt with a wink. Nat rolls her eyes. “Oh I’m hurt now. You can ask Bucky if you don’t believe me.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Steve scoffs around his spoon and he looks like such a dork that she smiles at him. The envelope blinks up at her, the letter’s logo poking out the opening. Nat fingers it gingerly and catches Steve watching her from the corner of his eye. She lets the letter float back to the tabletop.

“How’d you afford a flight to England?” she asks, to distract him. “You teach public school history, I know your salary.”

Steve allows the distraction. He leans back in his secondhand chair and stretches and says, “Birthday present from my mom.” He clenches his jaw like he’s trying not to cry.

Oh. She opens the envelope again. “I mean—”

“If you don’t want to,” he says, “it’s fine. I know it’s not your thing.”

Sarah Rogers bought her son a life’s supply of plane tickets and a membership to this convention before the cancer spread too far and stopped her lungs. He’s been going with Bucky for the last four years. The idea of him going alone to a place surrounded with memories of his mom isn’t even a consideration.

She pulls out the letter and rereads it. There’s only one response that won’t result in her hating herself later.

“I’ll go,” she says.

Steve punches the air in celebration, splattering yogurt all over both of them. He apologizes and she helps him clean up and it’s only when the kitchen is moderately clean that she realizes his birthday is in July.

He says, “Never been proven,” and she tosses his yogurt cup at him while he laughs.

____________

 

Steve leans against her classroom door last period before break and her students _ooo_ and Nat massages her temples. They’ve already dealt with several rumors detailing their sordid love affair since they started working together. His frequent end-of-the-day visits are going to ramp them up again, and she’s so tired of creative writing stories with red-haired women being seduced by door-leaning blond men.

He smiles at her like he knows she’s going to be reading about Natalias and Stephens falling in love for the next five weeks. She resolves to make him help her grade them, preferably with Bucky, preferably somewhere close to wine drunk.

“Ms. Romanoff,” he says, and then waves to the class. “Class. Nat, I need to borrow you a moment.”

She follows him into the hall as the class erupts into whispers. Wanda, Steve’s TA, appears as though by magic from around the corner and says, “You know how teenagers work, they’re going to be going on and on for the next ten years about this.” Nat points at her emphatically.

He holds his hands up and tells them both, “I know,” and Wanda slips past Nat to watch the class. They listen to the swell of noise as her students deluge her with questions. To Nat Steve says, “And I’m sorry. And you already know I’ll help you grade their assignments.”

This mollifies her somewhat. She waits for him to speak, trying to ignore the fact that her students are crowding around the tiny window in the door. Their favorite Peter smushes his entire face against the glass. A glimpse of Wanda from over the back of his head comes into view as she tries to get them all to settle down.

“Just wanted to go over the itinerary really quickly,” Steve says, and he glances at the window as well. “Except we have an audience.”

“Your timing is, as usual, incredibly inconvenient, my dearest friend.”

“I’ll make it quick?” he asks, and she nods. “Tickets under my name, I’ll check us in, Bucky needs the car so—?”

“I knew you only loved me for my car,” Nat says. “Ever since college. It’s all the same.”

He has the decency to look abashed. “What can I say. It’s shiny.”

“And about as old as Hank,” she says, because she knows he’ll say “But they both wear it well,” and he does.

“Is that all? I think Peter’s leaving a drool mark.”

Steve says, “More or less. You filled out the form online?” He seems suspiciously relieved when she nods.

Nat opens the door and her students trip over themselves to get back to their seats. Steve leans against the door again, and she glares until he straightens up.

Steve apologizes to the class for taking their teacher away and then, as he’s closing the door, asks, “Nat, Bucky and I can still count on seeing you for our anniversary, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

She points finger guns at him and winks and he snaps his fingers as he leaves, Wanda closing the door behind them.

From the back of the class Peter asks, “Who the hell is Bucky?”

Nat would feel sorry about their ruined creative writing pieces if she wasn’t relishing the fact that she’d be reading slash fics about her friends instead.

Then she can’t dismiss her students fast enough, shuddering as she wishes them a happy break. She’s going to make Steve help her grade these, too.

____________

 

Their flight is at 8:02 AM from JFK Saturday after school lets out. Nat picks Steve up from his apartment at 5:30, yawning behind a coffee cup that’s probably too expensive for her paycheck, but she’s too tired right now to care too much. Steve waves to her from the stoop and his eyes are noticeably puffy even at this distance. Behind him, Bucky stumbles barefoot out of the front door to kiss him on the lips. Nat turns away.

Steve opens the passenger door a few minutes later, smiling a sleepy good morning to her. Nat watches as he tries and fails three times to buckle his seatbelt before reaching over and doing it herself.

“Thanks,” he says, but the word is murdered by a yawn.

She narrows her eyes. “If you fall asleep on me, Rogers…”

“You’ll what?”

“Don’t tempt me,” she mutters, and eases them into traffic.

____________

 

Steve falls asleep on her on the plane.

He’d probably bought him a window seat with the intent that he’d fall asleep on the side of the plane, but alas. Nat shifts her shoulders and he grumbles and she pats his head exasperatedly.

Their flight is six hours, thirty minutes. Nat browses the film selection while asking herself again what she’s doing here. She doesn’t hate Austen; she’d written her thesis on love and Austen’s protagonists in modern adaptations. This was right around the time the Keira Knightley movie came out, so the paper had been decently easy to write in the three days before it was due.

That’s not right. She pauses, trying to do the mental math without having to pay for onboard wifi.

Ten minutes later Nat snaps her fingers when she figures it out and the guy in front of her throws up his hands in annoyance. She ignores him.

No, her thesis had been eight years after the movie. She remembers this because her hair had crunched from too much gel whenever she moved, and the girl next to her had whisper-yelled at her in the theater; she and Maria Hill always experimented with their hair after school, and they went to the movie together because Nat’s foster dad was very into Austen and wanted to go. Nick had insisted on taking photos of the two of them. It had been a very awkward third date for the two of them.

She and Maria were always doing silly things with their hair back then. She wonders briefly what silly things Maria’s doing with her hair now, and then she goes back to browsing the movies.

Nat settles on an animated film about pets and their lives and it’s objectively implausible, but it makes more sense than most of the _Of Mice and Men_ papers she just graded and handed back, so she ignores Steve’s snoring and lets herself be entertained.

____________

 

She wakes up to Steve shaking her shoulders. Stretching, they stand and disembark and suddenly London spreads out dark and sleepy before them. They double check the address for the convention and hail a taxi.

“Where you off to?” the driver asks.

Steve says, “Pemberley,” and the driver sighs and asks him to be serious.

“We’re being serious,” Nat says. She passes the invitation to the driver. “That’s what it says on our letter.”

The driver studies the paper for a few minutes, then passes it back to them. “Jane Austen, huh?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, sighing, “Jane Austen.”

They pull into traffic, and Steve instinctively steps hard on the floor where the brake would be before remembering the United Kingdom drives on the other side of the road. Nat laughs at him and immediately starts coughing. Steve’s eyebrows tell her this is fair karmic retribution.

The taxi driver’s eyebrows, on the other hand, seem to want to shame her and Steve both. “So. Have you done many of these roleplay things?”

“First time,” Steve says.

“Always thought people like you were odd,” the driver comments. He takes a left turn so sharply Nat hits the door hard enough to bruise. “Never knew what person would want to pretend to be someone else for a week.”

Nat’s about to answer when this last sentence makes its way through her caffeine deprived, jetlagged, Odyssey-consumed brain. “What do you mean, pretend to be someone else for a week?”

Steve shifts guiltily next to her. She turns to face him.

“What does he mean,” she says, her voice as deadly as when he spilled coffee all over the printer. “About pretending to be someone else for a week?”

“It might be a roleplay thing,” Steve mumbles.

Nat stares at him, mouth open. There’s so much she wants to say to this that she’s swallowed all her words. She catches the taxi driver stifling a laugh and, beside her, Steve fiddles with his backpack strap.

Finally she says, “The _hell,_ Steve.”

“In my defense,” he mutters, “you’re supposed to be good at close reading things, you’re an English teacher.”

“The _hell.”_

 _A roleplay thing._ She’s so thrown by this that she just stares out the window at the shadowy trees flashing by. Somewhere back around this unpleasant reveal they’d left the city behind them; she has a sudden vision of busting out the cab and sprinting back to Heathrow.

The cab lurches to a stop. Nat flings out a hand to keep from crashing into the seat in front of her.

“We’re here,” the driver says.

____________

 

They’ve pulled up in front of a huge, well-lit brown brick house. Nat stares up at it, dimly listening to Steve thank the driver and take their bags out the car. He comes up on her right and she takes her bags from him and goes back to looking at the house.

Vines crawl delicately down the front and left side, giving the house — mansion? Mansion — the feeling of having just woken up from the eighteenth century. Light stains the expansive lawn from several wide windows. Nat hears laughter spilling out the open front door, and her stomach twists uncomfortably.

She says, “Steve,” but then someone says, “Welcome!”

Steve screams. Nat punches something soft and the someone goes _oof_. A light shines bright into her eye, and she instinctively shields her face. The light flickers into her other eye before shining over Steve too and if she’d jumped out of the cab when she’d wanted to, she’d be through security now instead of fearing for her eyesight.

“Man, what the hell,” the someone groans. The light scatters on the gravel driveway as the someone straightens up.

“I’m so sorry,” Nat says, after Steve elbows her. “Are you okay?”

The someone points the light at their chin and their face illuminates the way Maria’s did when she told scary stories on their sleepovers. Their eyebrows are heavily unamused.

The someone says, “They told me I’d take some hits doing this kind of work, but I thought they meant financial.”

“She took a karate class in third grade,” Steve says. It’s hard to tell whether or not he’s laughing at her.

“Yes, well, I can tell.” The someone looks between them, then sighs. “Are you Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff?” Steve nods. “I’m Samuel Wilson. Welcome to Pemberley.”

____________

 

Samuel Wilson leads them into a long, carpeted hallway run through with vine designs that remind Nat of Maria’s parents’ hotel chain. They pass several busts and outline portraits as they dive deeper into the mansion, and Nat’s bordering on claustrophobic before Samuel ushers them into a large ballroom and then closes the door.

A blonde woman in a bonnet bounces up to them. Nat eyes her apprehensively.

“Hello!” she says, in a very Americanized British accent. “My name is Sharon, I’m the wardrobe mistress.”

Sharon looks Nat and Steve up and down like she wants to cover them both in Austenian garments. It takes Nat a minute to realize that this is, in fact, exactly what she’s going to do. Nat’s never been as fond of blue jeans as she is in this exact moment.

Sharon waves over a man dressed in a tailcoat and instructs him to take Steve to find appropriate clothing. Steve waves at Nat over his shoulder, beaming, and his excitement soothes her nerves. This is for Steve.

She repeats this to herself over and over while Sharon double checks the measurements she’d sent via the website, kicking herself for believing Steve when he’d told her they were for t-shirt orders. No one needs inseam measurements for t-shirts. Sharon tilts her head to the side while helping Nat into a blue dress, and she realizes she’s been mumbling all of this outloud.

Nat relaxes when Sharon doesn’t comment. Sharon drapes a light yellow shawl around her shoulders, and Nat clutches the edges instinctively.

The woman in the mirror looks ridiculous. She doesn’t have the right words to process what she looks like; Nick used to have these ceramic Austen figurines scattered around his office, and all she can think is that she’d look right at home next to one of his dying plants.

If this wasn’t questionably for Steve’s birthday she’d use her third grade karate skills to break out of the mansion. As it is—

“Are you ready, Miss?” Sharon asks.

Nat adjusts her shawl. “Let’s do this,” she says, and she follows Sharon out of the room.

____________

 

She’s proud that she doesn’t immediately roll her eyes at the way everyone’s acting in character.

She and Steve were handed character cards after their respective helpers escorted them back to the ballroom. According to the card, she’s now Miss Mary Farrell, the older daughter of a lawyer whose social status requires her to enter last in grand dinners and dances. Or so Steve told her before skipping ahead to the beginning of the line; as the highest ranking man in their group, Graham Beauchamp will be expected to lead the procession every night. Nat stares at the back of his head while trying to fight a yawn.

Someone taps her shoulder. “Tired?”

She keeps herself from punching this time, feeling both proud of herself and irritated that everyone seems to want to sneak up on her tonight.

Her shoulder-tapper is a blond man with a very non-regency Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles band aid on the bridge of his nose. He says, “Long flight? You were the last to arrive.”

His British accent is about as good as Sharon’s. Nat says, “Pretty damn long, yes.”

A woman in front of her gives her a look. “That’s not ladylike language, Miss Farrell.”

“Terribly sorry,” Nat says. “I’m afraid I don’t give a damn at this time of night, all my fucks to give have quite gone to sleep.”

She’s probably going to regret that. _This is for Steve,_ she reminds herself, but it’s about as effective a deterrent as putting her phone on do not disturb while she sleeps. It’s too tempting a distraction.

The man beside her makes a noise in his throat like he was going to laugh and decided not to right before he did. The woman flaps a fan open, looking affronted, and turns back around. Nat presses her fingers against her temples.

“You’ll probably have more fun if you lean into the stuffiness,” the man beside tells her. “It may well be a long week otherwise.”

“Do we have to do this now, though?” She checks her watch. “It’s nine-thirty.”

“The woman who runs this likes tradition,” he says apologetically. “The opening dances are pretty standard, she sees them as a way to break the tension.”

She’s about to ask how he knows all of this when the line starts moving. Steve’s laughter reaches all the way back here, and a little part of her is happy that he, at least, is having fun; she has just thought this when he skips into the opening figures of a dance everyone else seems to know but her. ‘First time doing a roleplay thing,’ her ass. There’s no way he hasn’t done this at least five times.

The man next to her takes her hands and says, “I’m Jeremy.”

She takes them. “Really?”

“Nah,” Jeremy says, and he spins her into the dance.

____________

 

Nat wakes up the next morning colder than she’s ever been in her life, including the time she sat in Nick’s restaurant’s industrial walk-in freezer to win a bet. She reaches for her blankets numbly before realizing she’s kicked them halfway off the bed. Without opening her eyes, she fishes them off the floor and pulls them up over her head. They’re much thinner than usual. After a few minutes just lying there, annoyed and awake and annoyed she’s awake, she sits upright.

And blinks. This is not her room. It takes her caffeine-deprived brain too long to remember she’s in London and even longer to remember she’s at a Jane Austen thing, and much too long to remember that she’s doing this for Steve. She stares at the blue patterned wallpaper and tries to force herself into an Austen mindset. Leaning into the stuffiness is first on the agenda this morning. Miss Mary Farrell is not a woman who makes a fuss about things, she’d decided. She had checked the rules last night after the ball, and apparently the woman in charge is free to kick out guests if they make things too “distinctly non-Austenian.”

There are a total of fifty-nine things that are “distinctly non-Austenian.” Nat wrote them all down in a notebook from home and then left it on the bedside table. Now, looking at it, she has to fight the urge to try and make her way down the entire list.

There’s no use delaying the inevitable. Nat slides out of bed and winces at the cold wooden floorboards on her way to her closet. Sharon apparently is only in charge of their wardrobe the first evening, so Nat dresses herself in the first non-corset-requiring dress she finds. She takes a moment to braid and pin up her hair, trying to imitate the hairstyle Sharon had done for her last night, and succeeds in securing one braid well and the other decently. She fiddles with the other halfheartedly.

“Fuck it,” Nat mutters, studying herself in the mirror. She looks like — she doesn’t even know. She looks like the figurine she’d painted all over as a child, the one Nick had gently set by the computer to prove he hadn’t been angry with her artistic endeavors. “Fuck it fuck it this is for Steve fuck.”

There’s a knock on the door. She jumps and yanks it open, heart pounding. The man she’d punched in the stomach last night startles away from her.

“Terribly sorry to disrupt you, miss,” Samuel says. He gives her a wary bow. “Your presence is requested at breakfast. I’ve been sent to fetch you.”

He holds out his arm. Nat takes it awkwardly, and they set off down the hallway. “Sorry about last night,” she says, and he raises his eyebrows. “You know. When I—”

“Yes, when you used your third grade karate skills on me.” There’s a brief smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Nat spares a second to think how unfair it is that he looks so dashing this early in the morning, and then wonders at herself. Dashing? “I was quite taken aback. Who knew Miss Farrell would have such hidden skill.”

“Not myself, surely,” she says. The unfamiliar way of speaking doesn’t trip her up as much as she thought it would. Samuel nods as if he’s thinking the same. “Though I’m sure that’s all I have up my sleeves, so you needn’t worry.”

They’ve come to a very large, very wooden door. Samuel looks as if he’d like to say something, but he just gives her another short bow and opens the door for her.

The first thing she sees is all the food. Plates piled high with rolls and sausages cover the length of the table, interspersed periodically with small bowls filled with colorful jams or butter. Fruit bowls dot the table here and there as well. Several vases overflowing with flowers divide the table settings every two placemats.

Steve’s distinctive morning cowlick pokes over the top of one bouquet. Nat has just begun to make her way toward him when Samuel coughs discreetly, inclining his head at the end of the table farthest from Steve.

“Participants playing characters of a lower class sit at the end,” Samuel explains in a low voice. Nat opens her mouth angrily, but he holds up a hand to stop her. “I know. I agree. But these are the rules.”

Nat pulls out her chair before Samuel can and drops into the seat. “Says who?”

Samuel sits next to her with decidedly more grace. She’s not sure why this annoys her. She asks the woman next to her to pass the rolls and she cakes the bread in butter.

“Says the owner, of course,” Samuel says, watching her.

“Don’t ‘of course’ me,” Nat says. “You don’t know me well enough for that.” She shoves the roll into her mouth and turns away from him. Down the table, Jeremy catches her eye and waves.

“My apologies, Miss Farrell.” His tone gives nothing away. “I can only hope to grow to know you that well one day.”

Nat glances at him now. He meets her gaze steadily, before looking away and talking about the weather with the woman who had passed the rolls. The woman looks eager and delighted to have his attention.

Nat focuses on eating to avoid examining how odd she feels now that he looks away. Nothing good can come from poking too closely at that feeling.

____________

 

Jeremy finds her in the gardens after they’ve been excused from lunch in the afternoon. His band aid is from Totally Spies today. She smiles a little at it.

“Miss Farrell,” Jeremy says. He touches the brim of his hat and ducks from a curious bumblebee. “Lovely to see you.”

“You never told me your last name, right? Do I call you Mr. Jeremy?”

He shrugs sunnily. “My real name’s Clint, but Jeremy’s probably better around everyone else.”

He sounds American today. Nat squints at him, and he tugs her bonnet lower over her eyes.

“Thank you,” she says. “You’re American?”

Clint nods, kicking at a pebble on the paved pathway. He motions forward as if to say _shall we?_ “You’d be surprised how much of the staff is American.”

They wind their way along the path, pausing now and then to speculate on how hard it would be to climb the trees bordering their way. Every new step makes the place expand as easily as snapping her fingers; she hadn’t realized how far back the property extended when the taxi pulled up last night. Little barns dot the fields on her left, populated by tiny figures that must be people on horseback. On her right, the trees thicken, growing so tightly together she thinks it’d be difficult to wedge a pencil between them. She silently debates the ethics of putting a pencil — a dead tree, after all — among its living brethren before deciding to assign the question to her creative writing class instead.

“How’d you end up here?” Nat asks. She’s been meaning to ask for awhile now. “You don’t seem as invested as the other actors.”

“Thanks?” Clint says, pulling a face. Nat shrugs. He rolls his eyes. “The owner’s a friend of mine. She set me up with this gig, said something about my ass looking fantastic in breeches.”

He strikes a pose and she laughs. “That easy, huh? If I wanted you to join the circus, all I’d have to say is you look good in tights?”

Clint pretends to consider this for a few seconds. “Pretty much, yeah. My ass does look fantastic in tights, for the record.”

“You remind me of Steve,” she says. “Or. Graham Beauchamp, I mean.”

“Nah I know Steve,” Clint says easily. “This is, what, his seventh year? We’re buddies. He’s in my fantasy football league.”

Of course he is. “Of course he is,” Nat says, sighing. She pretends to examine a pink flower next to the path. First time roleplaying, her _ass,_ Steven Grant Rogers. Maybe she’ll make him grade her Odyssey papers for her instead of waiting for the incoming creative writing pieces about him and Bucky.

When Clint speaks next, his voice is suddenly delicate. “You’ve known each other long?”

“We met in college.” His face does something weird at that; if she had to guess, she’d say he was — Nat waves her hands frantically and blurts, “Just a friend. He’s been dating someone for four years now.”

Clint’s face clears. “Bucky?” Of course. Nat drops her face into her hands. She feels him hesitate, then feels the pressure when he places his hands over hers. “They’ve been coming together,” he explains. “They met here. I didn’t — if someone was, you know—”

Nat looks him straight in the eye at that. Clint slides his hands into his pockets. “I promise you,” she says, her words deliberate and slow, “no one is cheating here.”

“You never know,” Clint says, scratching his head sheepishly. “You came together, it’s happened, Pemberley is known for—”

“Pemberley is _known_ for cheating?” she exclaims. A bird calls out at the sound and a small flock shoots out of the bushes. “Who runs this place?”

Clint shakes his head so fast it gives Nat neck pain just watching. “No, it’s more — the staff’s paid to make the trip fun, right? For some people, fun includes romance and all that.”

Nat stares at him. “You’re telling me my best friend brought me to a Jane Austen immersive roleplay thing—”

“Experience,” Clint offers.

 _“Thing_ that’s just a front for people to — to—” She throws her hands up to the sky. “To hook up in regency clothing? Where’s the realism in that?”

“Well, a lot of people, when they think of Austen they think love,” Clint says, leading her over to a stone bench perched beneath a flowering tree. “People who come here often look for it with us.”

Nat watches the figures on the horses and thinks about this and thinks some more, and then says, “That’s bullshit. There’s nothing lasting in that.”

Clint shrugs and traces the engravings on the bench. “Not everyone is looking for permanence.”

She thinks about Bucky sleepily kissing Steve before they left for the airport. They’re looking for permanence; they must be. Any suspicions she has at Steve’s underlying motives for this trip shrink in her mind until she can step over them.

“That’s bullshit,” she says again. Clint meets her eyes and, suddenly bold, she asks, “Don’t you think so? Aren’t you looking for something lasting?”

A dark-haired gardener crawls into view from behind a giant hedge with shears in hand. Nat thinks Clint glances at the gardener, his expression soft for just half a heartbeat as he says, “I think I’m doing alright.”

Nat elbows him, teasing. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Laura,” Clint says, straightening his cravat. He goes over to Laura and she tucks dirt down his boots, laughing, and he kneels down to kiss her.

____________

 

“What else aren’t you telling me about this place?” Nat murmurs that evening in the drawing room. Next to her on the sofa, Steve frowns and sets aside his book. She herself skims the page she’s pretending to read to avoid his expression. “Is it a Cold War era spy training ground? Or perhaps a science lair that’s proved the existence of aliens?”

“That’d be pretty fucking sweet,” Steve says, as the woman who’d been scandalized at Nat’s swearing says, “Language, Mr. Beauchamp!”

“My deepest apologies, Mrs. Hill,” he says. “May I assure you that it will not happen again.”

Nat rolls her eyes at him, well aware that Steve’s only truly sorry for swearing around his students. He elbows her in the side and Mrs. Hill shoots them both a look. It’s a strikingly familiar expression.

She jumps off the sofa and yanks Steve out of the room, ignoring Samuel’s questioning look. A servant standing in the hallway quietly moves to another room to give them privacy. Nat paces, waiting until the servant’s tailcoat is entirely out of sight before saying anything.

“Mrs. Hill?” Her heart is going to fast. Steve reaches for her arm to stop her from wearing a hole in the carpet, but she twists out of reach, laughing breathlessly. The carpet! That makes sense why the vine patterns are so familiar. “Mrs. Hill like Maria Hill’s mother?”

Steve’s frown deepens. “You know Maria Hill?”

“I know Maria — I told you about her,” Nat says. All at once her energy drops away. She stops pacing, leans back against the wall, and folds her arms. “She broke my heart in high school, remember?”

“Oh right.” Steve knocks his forehead with the heel of his palm. “That one time I stayed over at your place. When you procrastinated grading those Perks of Being a Wallflower essays.”

She sighs. “I was not procrastinating, I told you.”

“Yeah, you have a method, mm-hmm, totally believable. Exactly what a procrastinator would say.”

“I don’t have time for you right now,” Nat says exasperatedly, but she leans against him. Steve stoops a little so she can rest her cheek on his shoulder.

“You always have time for me, you softie, it’s how you justify all that procrastinating.”

She scootches her chin around on his shoulder until she can satisfactorily glare at him while still leaning. Steve bumps her head gently with his chin. She sighs.

“Does Maria show up often?” she asks quietly. “I don’t want to see her with either of us wearing a corset.”

“Only sometimes,” he says, and she goes back to glaring at him.

“Is that an ‘only sometimes’ like ‘it’s just a convention, Nat, not a place where people have weeklong sex in costume,’ or an ‘only sometimes’ like an actual, truthful ‘only sometimes’?”

“Weeklong sex sounds tiring.”

“Steven Grant Rogers I swear on all you love—”

He laughs so hard Nat straightens up for fear of breaking her jaw on his shoulder. She folds her arms, doing her best impression of Mrs. Hill’s disapproving look.

Steve clears his throat. “I meant. It’s the second one, I think. Actually, truthfully, only sometimes.” He considers her a moment, then says, “Would you want to see her in anything other than a corset?”

“A casket?”

He stares at her. “Well damn,” he says mildly, “that’s pretty fucking dark.”

Nat rolls her eyes and elbows him and says, “I’m joking.” Mostly. If not Maria in a coffin then herself, definitely. She spares a second to wonder what would happen if she died here, if they’d bury her in this dress. She hopes not. Though it would be less embarrassing if she were dead.

Steve is about to say something in response when Samuel carefully pokes his head into the hallway. Nat carefully avoids noting how well his light blue shirt looks against his skin by noticing Steve very not carefully looking between her and Samuel. His eyebrows look like they’ve figured something out. She wants both to ask what and to elbow him into normalcy.

“Mrs. Hill has just told us all a most diverting thing,” Samuel says now. Nat focuses on his shoe in an attempt to ignore how nice his voice is. “She’s just suggested we practice and perform a play this Saturday night to amuse ourselves.”

Steve says, “How fascinating,” and Nat swallows a laugh at the accent he’s adopted. It sounds like a mix of Samuel’s and Sharon’s with a dash of Clint’s.

“And what play might it be?” She addresses this to Samuel’s knee. A trembling in the Force tells her Steve’s raising his eyebrows again and this time she does elbow him. He hastily clears his throat.

Samuel politely waits to see if Steve clearing his throat meant he was going to talk, then says, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She’s sent me to see who you two would like to play.”

Unease settles low in her stomach. She’s never been good at pretending to be other people when she herself doesn’t want to, and right now this is last on her list of things she wants to do. She almost says as much, has the words already half-spoken, when Steve turns to her with bright eyes.

“Oh _do_ say yes, Miss Farrell,” he says eagerly. “It will be ever so fun.”

Nat winces. From the doorway, Samuel tilts his head in a way that seems to ask whether she’d break Steve’s heart like this. She scowls back, and he shrugs. This does nothing to make her feel better.

“What happened to that crowd of people we were with at the dance last night? Someone could take my place, couldn’t they?” Nat asks. She immediately regrets saying anything; even to her ears her voice sounds a little desperate.

Steve says, “Those were other actors,” at the same time Samuel says, “Their parts are already assigned.” They share amused looks at the joke.

Nat considers this a moment. Then she says, slow as to make sure she’s right, “There are three couples in this, not to mention several other characters. How will everyone be casted?”

“Jeremy has already volunteered to be one of the lovers,” Samuel says, “and I will play the other. You two will be one of the remaining four to optimize your stage time. We have a gardener willing to step up, and a surprise performer whom you will meet should you choose to reenter the drawing room.”

“I want Oberon,” Steve says. He still looks starstruck, but Nat can tell he’s making an effort to reign himself in when he tells her, “You don’t have to, you know. I can play more than one part. I’m very flexible.”

“Should I ask Bucky about that as well?” She grins at how pink his cheeks turn. “I’ll be in the play. It can’t hurt.”

Samuel ducks back in the drawing room, presumably to tell the assembled group that she and Steve have agreed to perform. Then he steps back out and says, “Wonderful. They’ve just informed me that Laura will act opposite Jeremy as the Hermia to his Lysander, which means you, Miss Farrell, will be my Helena, if you accept.”

Samuel holds out his hand. It is a pretty hand, she has to admit; she imagines just for a moment taking his hand and feeling his calluses on her fingers and then imagines feeling his calluses other places. Steve nudges her gently with his shoulder and coughs.

“Oh!” Nat places her hand atop Samuel’s, ignoring the little dance Steve’s doing with his eyebrows. “I do accept.” He gives her a little bow that makes her stomach flutter before she reminds herself he is paid to do this. He opens the door to the drawing room.

As they step through, Steve says, “Who is our surprise performer?”

Nat turns at his words but stops short.

Shit.

Maria Hill raises a glass in their direction, takes a sip, and meets Nat’s eyes when she says, “Me.”

____________

 

“I thought it would be too awkward, you know,” Maria tells her casually over dinner.

Nat has just spent the last few hours whisper-shouting at herself in the mirror in her room to calm down. Steve asked Sharon to help her calm down, and Nat ruined no less than three of Sharon’s clever hairstyles because she kept tugging her fingers through her hair. There are six or seven different dresses in various crumpled heaps on the floor like someone had them on and then disintegrated. A not-so-secret part of herself wishes she had disintegrated too. _It would be too awkward._ As if this wasn’t awkward. It’s only the four of them at the table; the rest of the cast has other things to do tonight, it seems, and this is a very — delicate, for want of a better word. A very delicate situation that’s giving her a headache.

Nat fakes a smile that she thinks Maria sees straight through, but she doesn’t comment. Instead Maria says, “You know, ex-girlfriends playing lovers. Plus Samuel is ever so handsome, isn’t he? You do go well together, you two.”

Nat has no idea how to respond to that. Samuel, either very intuitive of her discomfort or simply uncomfortable himself, merely glances at Nat and says to Maria, “You flatter me to no end, Miss Howard.”

“Please, darling, I’ve been trying for ages to get you to call me Catherine.”

Samuel deflects this comment with a laugh and engages “Catherine” in a debate over how best to spend tomorrow afternoon. Nat spends their conversation staring with wide eyes at Steve, who steps gently on her foot under the table to say he’s sorry for how this is unraveling. She puffs her cheeks out at him.

“I’m going to retire early,” she says. Maria opens her mouth to say something to persuade her to stay, but Nat just shakes her head and stands. “No, really, my head simply hurts too much to stay any longer.”

This invites a flurry of exclamations from Maria and Steve as they try to convince her to stay — the former — or offer to escort her to her rooms — the latter. Their concern pounds to the tempo of her headache. She waves them both down.

Steve causes a distraction by hold up a carrot and saying, “It’s been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable.”

Maria nearly kicks him out of the mansion and Nat makes it nearly to the door before anyone notices. She’s about to swear her lifelong allegiance to carrots when a chair scrapes back behind her.

Samuel half rises, smoothing the front of his suit jacket as he does. “I have our scripts in my room, Miss Farrell,” he says. “If you would come with me, I can give you yours.”

“I would,” Nat says, a little louder than she would normally; at the mention of Samuel’s room Steve suddenly fell into the loudest, most pointed coughing fit she’s ever heard.

____________

 

They walk along the corridor in a silence caught halfway between comfortable and awkward. Maria’s laugh follows them as they go. It crashes against Nat’s temples, and she sighs.

“Was that true, then?” Samuel asks suddenly. “You dated Miss Hill?” He weights the words oddly, like he doesn’t quite know how to ask the question and instead had to say it in a rush and the syllables piled up on themselves.

Nat flattens her mouth into an unamused line. “In high school.”

He considers her carefully out of the corner of his eye. “It didn’t end well?”

“She broke up with me at senior prom,” Nat says, rapping her knuckles on the wall. They’ve left the fancy wallpaper behind them a few steps ago; the walls are painted a creamy color that easily show various scrapes and scuffs from various shoes and elbows. The wood floors, too, show some dings and bangs. It has a very distinct Servant Quarters feel to it, which isn’t what she had expected. “Do you live here year round?”

“Not exactly. I have a home in Surrey, but I’m what you might call on retainer,” Samuel says. He’s still appraising her. “Why at prom? We’ve always heard it’s a special occasion.”

Nat stops and crosses her arms. “Because I loved her and I told her and she didn’t love me, and I don’t quite see how that’s your business, Mr. Wilson.”

He winces. “Forgive me. I have a tendency to pry into these sorts of things. Please don’t karate chop me.” She jerks her head in a nod, and they continue down the hallway. Samuel bows his and fishes out a key from his pocket, saying, “Pardon the mess, I don’t often have guests and I quite prefer living in mild clutter.”

They’ve come to a stop just outside a plain door. Despite her headache and general annoyance at Maria, she’s curious to see his room. Samuel unlocks the door and ushers her in front of him.

“Oh,” Nat says, turning slowly. “Wow. Did you do all this yourself?”

She’s walked into a giant timeline. The room is covered with dates and events and the occasional doodled coat of arms. The paint looks as though the crests would glow in the dark if they flipped the light off, and they drip lazily underneath paragraph after paragraph of information. There’s a cracking faux leather armchair in the corner that’s full of books titled _History of King Arthur_ and _The Enduring Legacy of Robin Hood._ Loose papers spill from the chair nearly across the room. The whole effect is rather overwhelming. She has to sit down.

“Oh, whoop—” Samuel catches her under her arms before she slides to the floor. “Here,” he says, shuffling them both to the bed. It creaks under their weight. Nat waves his hands away from her pulse point, but he plants his hands on the side of her face to keep her from moving while he checks her pupils.

“I’m fine,” she says for the fourth time. He bites his lip worriedly, and now she’s really happy he isn’t taking her pulse; he’s distractingly attractive and his face is much closer to hers than usual. Her heartbeats triple. She wants and doesn’t want him to take his hands back.

Samuel asks, “Are you certain?” He hesitates. “Does that … happen often?”

“I just got a little lightheaded, I’m fine.” Nat stands, and he lets go of her. The room dips around her. She sits back down. “Just stood up too fast, that’s all.” It looks like he’s about to say something else so she says, “So you’re interested in—” She waves a hand at the books and the wall. “—all this?”

The wrinkle between his eyebrows tells her he knows what she’s doing, but he allows the subject change. “In uni I studied enduring British legends and history. Miss Hill allows us to decorate our rooms to our taste, provided we don’t unduly alter the structural integrity of the walls, and I’m thinking of going back for another degree, so. This is to capture everything outside my head, so I can see it.”

“Visual thinker?”

He nods. “Visual and mechanical. Information is easier for me to absorb if I can put my hands on it. Writing on the walls helps. You should see my study at home.”

She considers him now and he lets her, pretending to be busy tidying up a stack of books by the bedside table. He looks sharper somehow, surrounded by these things. They speak to some hungry something hiding just beneath the surface. He handles the books carefully; some of them look as though they could fall apart in his hands, they’ve been read so often. She can think of several things that could come apart in his hands.

Nat thinks she perhaps has too vested an interest in his hands.

Samuel licks his fingertips to turn a page, and her eyes snag on his lips. Perhaps too vested an interest in his mouth, too.

She clears her throat. “You have the scripts, right?”

“Oh, right.” Samuel excavates two bound scripts from beneath his pillow and she takes one. “Our scenes are tabbed, so it will be easy to find them tomorrow.”

“What’s tomorrow?”

His mouth twitches. “You really weren’t paying attention.”

“Ex-girlfriend?” Nat prompts, incredulous. “Broken heart? Were you listening?” She elbows him on instinct, then jerks back. “Sorry.”

“You’re quite all right, Miss Farrell.” Samuel says her fake name like he wants to be saying it. He clears his throat. “If you’re willing, the plan we agreed upon is to relax in the morning and go through lines in the afternoon.”

She wants him to say her real name. “Do you all have to be in character all the time?”

“When we’re with guests it’s recommended,” he says. He elbows her back, swift and sure. “I’m sure you’re aware your friend takes these things more seriously than some, and some members of staff are more invested than others.”

“You mean Clint,” she says, and he laughs and tells her about Clint’s ever rotating cast of cartoon inspired band aids until Sharon, scandalized, passes the open door and hurries Nat out of his room.

____________

 

“Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?” Samuel pauses. They’re in the gardens, and the juxtaposition of his words and the pink and yellow and red flowers around them is the sort of thing she’d have her students analyze in class. “This is truly the most unhealthy relationship I’ve read in a Shakespeare play.”

Nat tosses a handful of grass at him. “Don’t go off script now, Mr. Wilson, or Miss Howard will surely be back to lecture us on the importance of preserving The Bard’s texts in their most pure form.”

Samuel shudders at that, and she laughs. Maria had already told Steve off for ad libbing some of Oberon’s lines. She hadn’t taken his argument very well. Apparently “I think Oberon would like rap music” is not an idea Pemberley endorses.

“And even for that do I love you the more. I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, the more you beat me, I will fawn on you,” Nat replies. “Oh my.”

He picks a stalk of grass out from under his collar. “You know, I really don’t think Miss Howard read this play before choosing it.”

“Perhaps she simply wishes to sabotage my fictional relationships as well as my actual ones.”

There’s a brief moment in which Samuel looks at her and she looks at her script. He says, “That’s bloody dark.”

“Language!” she gasps. Now he stoops, picks a dandelion from the path, and lobs it at her, rolling his eyes. She tucks it behind her ear. “How do you want to play this?”

He thumbs his way through the tabs. “If we work the sarcastic angle we can pretend both our characters think this is pointless, much in the way we do.”

“That would make it much easier to get into character,” Nat agrees. “I do hope Miss Howard and her mother won’t disembowel us opening night.”

“Yes, I quite like having my bowels within my body.”

Nat snorts a laugh and lies down, mentally weighing how difficult it would be to get grass stains out of her dress. She decides she doesn’t care that much. New York dry cleaners have seen stranger things than Jane Austen inspired regency dresses.

If nothing else, she’ll make Steve and Bucky wash it. Some karma for having duped her into this trip.

But then Samuel flops to the ground on his stomach beside her and sprinkles grass and Shakespeare on her and she sprinkles them both back, and the play is only five days away, and Nat has read ahead.

There’s a delicious moment hanging between them that whispers about a kiss. Nat plucks a dandelion and tucks it in Samuel’s suit jacket, and if she’s red from thinking of kissing him, he doesn’t comment. He presses the petals between his thumb and forefinger and then touches the flower behind her ear and then and then and then—

Frozen. His eyes are so lovely this close.

She needs to say something before she does something stupid like sticking petals into his goatee.

“Um,” she says. “Mr. Wilson, do you think — the script? Lines?”

Samuel blinks. “You’re right.” His fingertips graze her cheek as he withdraws his hand. “My apologies, I was — distracted.”

Oh. _Oh._ “It’s quite all right,” she says, smiling. She feels strangely fluttery. “Were we on act two?”

“Scene two,” he agrees. They turn to the right pages. “Shall we?”

Nat nods, and he touches the flower in his pocket again, and they practice their lines. Every now and then she thinks he _looks_ at her. She wonders how she’s looking back.

____________

 

Tuesday afternoon passes in much the same way, as does Wednesday. At lunch Maria regales them with stories of some trip to Rome and Athens that sounds too accurate to be pretend and Clint, joining them both times with a Kim Possible band aid on his forehead, charms her enough to distract her from his non-regency appearance. Nat doubts it truly works, but Maria abstains from yelling at him. Probably a side effect of being friends with the boss.

After lunch Thursday, she and Samuel retreat to a bench just outside the horse pasture and continue working through their scenes. From this distance, the mansion looks to be about the size of a normal house. Tiny figures work pruning the gardens around the driveway; they’re the exact size of one of the tabs on their scripts.

“How did she do all of this?” Nat asks. Samuel, in the middle of some cutting remark as Lysander, raises his eyebrows. “Maria. This estate is enormous, and she’s from New York.”

Samuel frowns. “I’ve always been told she inherited it. Missing father turns out to be a wealthy Brit, his parents pass away, Miss Hill is given a huge tract of land in the will.”

“And naturally anyone would open a Jane Austen roleplaying thing,” she says.

“It makes sense from a certain perspective,” Samuel says, but he’s hiding a smile behind his script. His eyes have gone crinkly the way they do when he’s trying not to be amused but is unsuccessful. “An easy way to create revenue on the land. Americans are easily attracted to Jane Austen ‘things,’ as you so eloquently put it. We typically host large groups, so you may think it seems strange that the grounds are so empty, but we made a special exception to open for Mr. Rogers’ birthday.”

“It’s beautiful day in the neighborhood,” she mutters. “You know his birthday’s in July?”

“Never been proven, so I’m told.” She elbows him, and he laughs. “There are extenuating factors. I’m not allowed to discuss it.”

Something wet glomps onto her hair. She twists around and the wetness globs onto her neck, spreading down her arm and back. The movement brings her face to face with a giant nostril, which flares in what seems to be annoyance and which stares into the depths of her soul. If nostrils can be annoyed. Nat hasn’t entirely decided. An enormous eye blinks down at her.

“Hey there,” Nat says to the horse. Slowly, carefully, she strokes its neck. It gums at her hair again.

“Hay is for horses,” Samuel says, biting on a smile. He gently pushes the horse’s head away, freeing her hair. “Hair however is not hay and thus is not for horses.”

Nat decides nostrils absolutely can be emotional; the horse looks mortally offended, and it huffs loudly. Samuel whispers an apology to it and pats its side. Its ear flicks.

“Did you practice that?” she asks.

He bumps her shoulder with his own. “It is perhaps possible such pronunciation propagated from practice.”

The fence shifts and settles behind them; turning, Nat finds Steve leaning on the fence. He winks at her. Nat subtly flips him off.

“You’re full of shit, Wilson,” Steve says. The horse’s nostrils relax at his voice and tries to eat what must be his pair of riding boots; she suddenly understands why he’s there.

Samuel says, “You must have me mistaken for someone else, Mr. Beauchamp,” but he flips Steve off too. It’s hysterically funny seeing the gesture from someone with flouncy cuff sleeves.

“I was hoping to have some time to speak with you today,” Steve says. He adjusts his jacket. The horse looks like it wants to eat that, too.

How comfortable he looks here, shirtsleeves rolled up, leaning on a wooden fence beside a horse. Nat’s struck by how timeless he seems. This could be a photo taken now, or a hundred years ago, or in a hundred years to come.

Then he ruins it by saying, “Barton and I wanted to get the league set up for next season.”

____________

 

“You _liiiike_ him,” Steve sings in her ear Friday evening. “You _like_ like him.”

Nat clears her throat deliberately and uncaps her pen. “If you’re going to bother me I’m going to kick you out of my room.”

“Nah you won’t. You love me,” he says. He nudges her knee until she pushes him back. He claps his hand to his chest and sprawls on the bed dramatically, pretending as though she’s fatally wounded him. She rolls him over to keep the papers from crinkling. “Ill met by moonlight, Nat, thou hast slain me.”

“That’s what you get,” she says distractedly, rereading the same sentence again. “I don’t know where I went wrong, I know I told them Odysseus is Nobody.”

Steve flops his arm at her without getting up, still pretending to be mostly dead. Nat drops it on his chest and lies down, resting her head on his stomach. He scratches her hair and reads, “‘Odysseus was helped by a random person named No One on Polyphemus’ island.’ They spelled ‘Polyphemus’ wrong. This isn’t our favorite Peter, is it?”

“‘Odysseus’ too, and no,” she says. She takes the paper back and circles the offending sentence in red. “Later they say something about Penelope and Circe being in love. Which would’ve been interesting, but definitely doesn’t happen in this. Our favorite Peter wrote a beautiful and moving essay on Athena.”

“Maybe this one’s writing fanfiction.” Steve yawns and his stomach rumbles so loudly she sits up and stares at him. He blinks at her innocently. “I make no apologies for my bodily functions,” he says.

Time slips by. Nat circles and writes in the margins, reading random snippets of things aloud when they don’t make sense, nodding to herself when they do. Steve plays with her hair and talks about Bucky’s case back home — she’s unsurprised to learn that his phone is linked to the staff wifi — and their anniversary plans. Nat hums now and then to let him know she’s listening.

She finishes up around 9:34 PM. She flips through them all again to double check her grades, feeling proud of herself for knocking them all out at once. Yawning, she shakes her hand out, tapping Steve’s hand for him to keep playing with her hair.

“What’re you procrastinating?” Steve asks suddenly. Nat points to the pile of papers with her pen, eyebrow raised, and he shakes his head. ”I’m serious. You always do this when there’s something bigger that needs to happen that you don’t want to do. What aren’t you doing?”

This feels too much like self-reflection and all she can think about is Samuel touching the flower behind her ear and she really, really does not want to look at that too hard.

“I’m thinking of going blonde,” she blurts. “I know I could pull it off.”

Steve’s eyebrows tell her she’s full of shit and that he knows she knows it. “Are you dyeing your eyebrows too?”

“Hell no. That’d just look dumb.”

He taps a rhythm on her head. “Natasha.”

She makes a face. “Steven.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asks. He gently pushes her head until she sits up, and he mirrors her. She sighs.

“You know already,” Nat says quietly. This feels too much like poking a bruise; this afternoon she and Samuel had spent the day by the lake behind the mansion, and he had been wearing a gorgeously blue shirt that somehow made the water around them dull. _He’d_ made the water around them dull. “If I focus on it too much … we’re leaving—”

She laughs shakily. Steve wraps her in a hug, kissing the top of her head. “Thank you. Two days, Steve, we’re on the plane in two days and there’s no way this can be a permanent thing. There are too many bad endings here. This place is full of them.”

He doesn’t say anything, waiting. He knows her well enough by this point to know that she’s examined this from more than one perspective. When it matters, they both overthink things.

Nat doesn’t want to say this next part. She burrows as close as she can into his fancy shirt, hoping the fabric will muffle her voice.

She whispers, “Not to mention he’s getting paid for this, so who knows how real it is.”

Steve’s entire body moves as he shakes his head. “Absolutely not,” he says, laughing a little but in that way that means he’s completely serious. “No, Natasha, he’s not like that. Sam Wilson is one of the most genuine people here. I’m letting you go so you can look me in the eye and see how much I mean this.”

He does. Nat looks him in the eye and sees how much he means this.

“Shit, Nat, he’s using his real name,” he says.

This makes her smile a little. “Is he?”

“Damn right. He tried out Anthony Gordon my first year here. Didn’t go well.”

“He definitely seems more like a Samuel than an Anthony,” Nat says. This is trivial and they both know it but it’s something to cling to, a distraction from this mess in her heart and head and stomach, so she says, “More of a Sam than a Samuel.”

Steve lightly pokes her in the ribs. “And me?”

“Depends on whether you’re being a goofus or not,” she replies, “and even then Steve and Steven both work.”

He pulls a face that says she has a fair point. They’re quiet a moment.

Finally Nat says, “Do you think, outside of this place, Sam and I could—?”

She pulls a loose thread on her comforter, ignoring the way he’s studying her.

Steve taps her chin until she looks at him and says, “Absolutely.”

____________

 

“So methinks: and I have found Demetrius like a jewel, mine own, and not mine own,” Nat says. From the audience Maria mouths, _enunciate,_ and Nat repeats the line louder.

“Have you forgotten your blocking?” Maria asks, irritable. Her normally impeccable hair strains free of its hair pins from all the times she’s tugged on it in this rehearsal. “You’re meant to embrace Mr. Wilson. At least pretend to be in love with him.”

Steve grimaces over Maria’s shoulder. Clint, today with a Phineas and Ferb band aid on his chin, makes a face.

It would be one thing if this was a necessary rehearsal. Late though it was when Nat and Steve finished grading the papers, Maria had barreled in and made them come to the drawing room to read through the entire play, then pushed through all the yawning and grumbling to stage roughly the entire show. She’d made them go top to bottom no less than three times. Nat’s positive she’s not the only one who wanted to walk out before rehearsal was up.

They had ended at 2:37 AM. Nat didn’t fall asleep until 3:41 AM, though, and Maria woke them all up seven hours later to have breakfast and to do the whole thing again.

She takes a moment to wonder what exactly had happened after college to make Maria like this. Then she delivers the line again, gazing deeply into Samuel’s eyes and holding him tight. His arm goes around her waist. She tries and fails to conceal a little thrill at his touch.

“Are you sure that we are awake? It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think the duke was here, and bid us follow him?” Samuel says. He looks at her a little strangely, but doesn’t break character.

“Yea, and my father,” Laura-as-Hermia says.

She wishes she could have spent more time with Laura. The way she stands so close to Clint, the way he tucks her hair back just so; she has so many questions for them. They met here as well — Clint had told her this the Sunday after they arrived — and the hopeful sliver that lives beneath Nat’s right lung wants to know how they managed to make this happen for themselves.

They proceed with the scene. When they file offstage, Nat pulls Clint aside and says, “I feel as though I haven’t seen you in an age.”

Clint shrugs. “Well you wouldn’t have, would you? Our assignments changed.”

Something uneasy twists in her stomach. She glances toward where Steve and Samuel are discussing their fantasy football league. They keep calling it badminton so Maria doesn’t yell at them. “Assignments?”

“Yeah. Maria thought we’d hit it off, but then she saw how much you liked Sam, so. Reassigned us,” he says. His eyes go wide at the expression on her face. “Wait no shit, I wasn’t supposed to — you’re signed up for the romance option, I thought you knew—”

The uneasiness twists tighter and spreads, now making her head throb painfully. She presses her fingertips to her temples. “Romance option?”

Clint looks like he’s trying to figure out how this went to shit so quickly. Nat doesn’t blame him. He says, talking too fast, “When you sign up there’s a section where you click if you want to be romanced or not, and your application said you did so we all assumed—”

“Who is ‘we all’?” she asks, closing her eyes. She kind of wants to crawl into the lake and let it float her away.

“We—” he flails helplessly. “I don’t — this is how it works here.”

Nat nods, slow at first and then faster to keep the tears prickling her eyes at bay. “Right,” she says. “Right. Well. Do inform Miss Howard that I’ve suddenly taken ill and must retire to my rooms this instant.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s quite all right,” she says, not sounding at all like it’s quite all right. “I understand entirely and—” She offers him a fledgling smile that wobbles without her permission. “—and it is not your fault. But I must go before I start crying, and you might imagine why I would not want to cry here.”

She thinks she hears Steve say “Nat” as she’s leaving, but she gathers her skirts in her hands and runs. She makes it to the gardens on the other side of the mansion before she starts to cry.

____________

 

Samuel finds her lying on the lawn about a half hour later. “Hi,” he says. “Are you open to company?”

“I suppose,” Nat says. She pats the lawn beside her. “Pull up some grass.”

He does. They spend a few moments talking about the clouds and relishing the breeze. She does her best not to look at him like he’s someone she could stay with forever.

Samuel props himself up on an elbow. “You know, I can’t tell what color your eyes are. They seem to be perfectly like both the grass and the sky. You look exceptionally pretty like this, Miss Farrell, caught between the ground and the heavens.”

“Call me Natasha,” she says, a little hoarse from crying. It is not worded as a question but it comes out as such. She plows on before she can second guess herself. “If you mean them, when you say things like that, call me Natasha. Please.”

He deliberates in an exaggerated way, tapping his fingers on his chin and braiding dandelion stems together into a crown. Her heartbeat seems to fill the space between them. She dearly hopes he doesn’t hear how fragile she feels now that she’s finally asked him this.

“If you wish it,” Samuel says finally. He leans over and sets the dandelion crown on her head, careful as to ensure it will stay when she sits up. “You look exceptionally pretty like this,” and here he tucks a few pieces of her hair up to secure the flowers. “You look exceptionally pretty, Natasha,” he continues, his voice low and close and intimate. His thumb glances across her cheek; she shivers. “Caught between the ground and the heavens.”

He’s looking at her and it’s a _look._ She should say something to acknowledge this, to acknowledge that she’s been _looking_ at him this entire week, but—

“Is this part of your script,” she says softly. It is worded as a question but does not come out as such. “The flowers, this pretty thing you’ve just said. Is this part of the romance option?”

Samuel pulls back like she’s just thrown her copy of the play in his face. Immediately she regrets asking, but how could she not have said it? She spots Clint and Laura over Sam’s shoulder; they’re leaning close into each other’s space, smiling the kinds of smiles people in love have ready at all times. _Permanence,_ she’d said to Clint. _Aren’t you looking for something lasting?_

“I apologize,” Samuel says. He addresses her left shoe instead of her face. “I’ve overstepped. Please do forgive me, Miss Farrell.”

 _Permanence,_ she’d said to herself in the bathroom at prom, cleaning mascara off her cheeks. _Aren’t you longing for someone worthwhile?_

“I didn’t mean—”

“Perhaps we should go back to practicing our lines?” He smiles now, a tight thing that makes her mouth hurt to look at. “Opening night is tonight, after all. We cannot let Miss Howard and Mr. Beauchamp outshine us.”

 _Permanence._ Is it possible — could it have been possible—?

He hands her script to her, making sure not to brush fingers or to come any nearer than necessary. “Shall we, then.”

Nat says, “Samuel, you must understand why I’m asking. I thought this was a convention. I was not prepared for—” _You._ “—anything like this.”

“I understand,” he says. He pauses a moment before speaking, folding and unfolding the upper right hand corner of a page. “It is difficult. When I was first hired, Clint told me stories of accidental heartbreaks. I didn’t understand then.”

He doesn’t say “I do now,” but it stretches between them anyway.

“Then how do you balance emotions and your job description, Mr. Wilson?” she asks.

“I like things I can hold in my hands,” Samuel says softly. He considers his palm a moment. “Real things. I don’t quite like the romance clause insisted upon by my employer. It leaves much to be desired.”

She should go back to the play. She should say something about her lines and memorizing, or the way this corset pinches so uncomfortably, or something about wishing for more garlic in the meals. Should be anywhere but here, looking anywhere but directly into his eyes and noticing anything but the way his lips part just so slightly, how his eyes are already partly closed as he looks at her.

This feels like a tipping point.

Nat whispers, “And what might that be?”

Tentatively, slowly, she reaches toward him. Samuel’s eyelashes dust his cheeks as he watches her movements. She touches her fingertips to the dip in his throat. He swallows against her fingers, but he doesn’t pull away.

“Natasha,” Samuel whispers. She feels her name in his throat and—

He finds her fingers on his skin and covers her hand with his own. Nat laces their fingers together and—

He kisses the inside of her wrist. He looks at her and kisses there again, deliberately, and—

For a moment she forgets how to breathe.  

He says, “Everything.”

____________

 

Nat should have kissed him.

Maria changed the blocking for the performance, taking the scripted kiss out last minute. Nat, even three hours after the play, isn’t sure whether this is better or worse; the scene turned into Samuel kissing her hand, which ordinarily would not do much for her at all, but. After the Wrist Incident that afternoon, it feels like she’s still holding her breath after being stuck underwater. The promise of a kiss seems stuck in her lungs. She doesn’t want to think about how she may never dislodge it.

Steve dances wildly by her just then, still draped in the greens and blues of his Oberon costume, and even across the room Samuel’s laugh rises high above the orchestra. Clint spins Laura and dips her low and their happiness makes the chandeliers brighter. She draws him close.

Nat fidgets with her hair and looks away.

She makes her way around the room, feeling a little apart and trying to decide whether she wants to join the dance or sneak off to her room early. Somehow even though she’s spent the week in gowns and dresses, all the clothes in her suitcase wound up all over the floor. Even her notebook on the bedside table has a hefty accumulation of shit on it.

Their flight’s at 10:13 AM. They have to be up at five to meet their cab for the two hour drive to the airport, giving them three hours to get through customs before the eight hour flight. Eight hours of coughing, crying, and canoodling couples. She’s tired just thinking about it.

“You look lovely this evening,” someone says quietly. Nat spins around. Samuel, laughing, dodges her first hit. “I come unarmed, I promise.”

She hesitates a little too long before awkwardly knocking his shoulder with her knuckles. He repeats the gesture, raising his eyebrows, but his eyes are smiling.

“It’s very ingrained,” she says. “My foster father insisted upon Austen and ass kicking.”

They both ignore Mrs. Hill’s scandalized “Language!”

“Well,” he says, slowly looking her up and down. “It’s working quite well for you. Natasha.”

“Oh.” She takes a shaky inhale; it lodges next to that kiss. Then, sudden and sure: “Do you — would you want—”

And at the same time Samuel says, “Natasha, could I kiss you?”

“Samuel. _Yes.”_

His smile is so wide. She wants to taste it. “Call me Sam.”

____________

 

Nat has barely closed the door to her room when his hands are moving her hair off her neck, ghosting his lips across her skin. She shivers.

“Sam,” she says, turning. He’s so close already; she wants him closer. She whispers his name again and then she’s whispering it against his lips and she all but melts.

He kisses her like there’s something lasting here, like they only have to write it down enough times in his papers for it to stick. Like one day they’d be painted on the walls.

And his _hands._ Nat could probably devote an entire wall to his hands.

Sam threads his fingers through her hair and she sucks his bottom lip, tugging gently with her teeth. He shudders. She grins.

“Natasha,” he whispers, his lips to the soft part underneath her jaw. The vibration makes her shiver, and she fumbles with his shirt until he leans back and pulls it off himself. He teases the tops of her breasts with the laces of her corset.

She wants to kiss him. She flattens his hand on her breasts and says, “Sam.”

He keeps eye contact, his gaze smoldering, and loosens it slowly as he teases her with light touches and kisses trailing up her sternum. Nat tips his jaw up until he lunges forward and sends them both almost pitching off the bed.

“Oh — sorry,” Sam says through a laugh.

Nat says, “Don’t be,” and flips them so Sam is now on his back. She doesn’t think she imagines the way his breath catches as she straddles him. “Now help me out of this dress.”

____________

 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. And you’re positive?”

“There’s no doubt in my mind.”

____________

 

Sharon wakes them up bright and early at 5:03 AM. Nat stretches and rolls over, and she doesn’t bump into Sam. His side of the bed is still warm. She tries to convince herself she wasn’t expecting to see him in the morning.

Maria sees them off when their cab arrives, reminding Mr. Beauchamp that the house always appreciates his visits and wishing him safe travels. Her parting words to Nat are about Sam and nighttime noises. Nat elects to ignore her comments, but she knows Steve’s filing away how red she is when Maria says “Samuel Wilson.”

The ride to the airport is quiet. Or, Nat is; she hopes Steve falling asleep now will mean he’ll be awake on the flight. She does not want to miss Sam on the way back, and if Steve’s asleep she won’t have much of a distraction.

They’re at the gate before Steve says, “So,” in a very deliberate tone that refers to every second of what she did last night. “You disappeared early last night.”

“Yup.” Nat opens a bottle of water, avoiding his gaze.

He leans almost all his body weight against her shoulder. “You did.” Now he leans forward, his elbows on his knees, and waggles his eyebrows at her. “Sam did.”

She takes a sip of water. “Did he now.”

“You have hickeys on your neck,” Steve comments.

She tries to speak before swallowing her water and all of it sputters onto her pant leg. “What!” She twists her chin down, trying to see. “Where?”

He gives her a shit-eating grin. Nat smacks his shoulder, and he laughs outloud. “I knew it! Nat!”

“Shh, people are looking,” Nat says. No one is looking. Maybe one curious person behind them is looking. “And you can’t prove anything, you dork.”

“You _liiiike_ him,” Steve sings softly. He bumps her knee. He drops the song and says, “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine.” Nat blushes. “Really good.”

“Are you going to keep seeing him?” Steve asks. He opens a bag of chips so enthusiastically it busts and the chips fly everywhere.

Nat elects to ignore this in favor of stacking chips in his hair. She manages to balance thirty-four before they fall over. He makes a face at her and sweeps themis all into the trash.

“Childish,” he says.

Nat mimics him, singing, “You _liiiike_ him,” and he shrugs.

“I concede. Will you, though?”

She says, “We talked about it last night.” He makes a face, and she makes a noise like _pffft._ “Fine, this morning. I don’t know that it’s going to work out.”

After, as Sam had kissed the hollow of her throat and she’d outlined the muscles in his shoulder and back, they’d whispered about their commitments and their plans and jobs. She had put on one of his shirts and he’d unbuttoned it and she’d kissed him, and while doing so they had agreed that, maybe, it would make more sense to keep this as a one night thing.

Nat promises herself that she hadn’t expected to see him in the morning. There’s too much there, if she lets herself look at it.

Steve laces their fingers together. He says, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she says, and this time she almost means it.

____________

 

Steve falls asleep on her on the plane.

She’s not really sure what it is with him and air travel; every time he gets on a plane he nosedives into sleep right away. It’s not as awful as it could be; the airline streams Keira Knightley’s _Pride and Prejudice,_ and the last time she watched it was for her thesis. This time, she rests her head on Steve’s shoulder and watches until her eyes are too heavy to keep open.

____________

 

“How’d the case wrap up?” Steve says in between kissing every inch of Bucky’s face.

He gives Steve a peck on the nose. “Fine. It was an inside job but we got it wrapped in a week, turned out Ruml—” He breaks off. “I’m actually not allowed to tell you that.”

“We can talk about it later,” Steve murmurs against Bucky’s neck.

Nat rolls her eyes. “Later” is usually code for sex or charades, and in this context, with them practically making out in their kitchen, she’s not entirely sure she knows which Steve means this time.

“I should go,” she says. Steve lets go of Bucky so quickly she’d swear Bucky shocked him. He starts to say something but she shakes her head, hugging them both tight. “I do, I really do, I have to finalize the grades on those Odyssey essays.”

“Nat,” Steve says. His eyebrows look heavily concerned. “Do you really want to be alone right now?”

She takes a deep breath. They’re so — domestic, she thinks, and happy together, and this apartment tells a whole story of them. The hand towel Bucky’s draped over his shoulders has their initials monogrammed on it. Going home alone in the face of their love seems like the best option; she thinks it might be better to be lonely at home instead of surrounded by her friends’ love for each other.

“I’ll be fine.” Steve’s eyebrows doubt her. She elbows him and says, “I will, I promise.”

“Text when you get home,” Bucky says.

“Will do.”

Steve kisses her cheek. “It was very delightful to make your acquaintance this past week, Miss Farrell.”

She says, “I love you too,” and then drives home.

____________

 

Wanda brings them both coffee the next week, and the one after that. They’d been lucky enough that the Monday after their flight had been a built in snow day that climate change meant they didn’t have to use, and so managed to sleep the day away. She’d surfaced around 6 AM and then again at 1 PM to eat breakfast slash lunch and dinner and then again at 8 PM for a snack, meaning she’d managed to thoroughly fuck up her sleep schedule. She takes her coffee now, rubbing her temples and hoping she wakes up soon. It feels like she’s been walking through a fog the last few weeks.

“You’re a blessing, you know that?” she tells Wanda. Wanda seems torn between being humble and saying something along the lines of “duh,” which Nat remembers from her own assistant teaching days.

Wanda settles on “I try” and pulls up a chair. Nat moves her papers until they’re somewhat more carefully organized. She promised her class she’d hand them today when she was still jet lagged, never believing the dreaded day would arrive, and she has six more to do. It’s her own fault and she knows it but it’s still nice that Steve isn’t there to rub it in.

“What’re you working on?” Wanda asks, craning her head to read the topmost paper. “‘Steve Rogers, Super-Soldier.’ Who is this — oh, Peter.” They share a look. “Steve doesn’t read these, does he?”

“When I want to remind him that my entire class thinks we’re dating, yes, he does,” she says. “I agree though, he doesn’t need the ego boost.”

Wanda thumbs through the stack. “Are there any of me?”

“Someone shot a home movie, animated, but it was very whitewashed,” Nat says carefully. “I did not give them a high grade for it. And we had a good talk about how to proceed in the future.”

“Thank you,” Wanda says.

They spend Nat’s lunch and free period reading the stories to each other. Her students, she’s found, are big fans of love stories; this latest batch has a bike tire falling for an air pump, two spiders deciding not to eat each other, and the aforementioned Steve story about him and his sniper sidekick Bucky falling in love during World War II. Wanda’s favorite is one on chemistry and history. Nat really, really likes the bike tire one.

“What do you want to do with this, Wanda?” she asks suddenly. She opens her mouth to try to explain what she means, but somehow that makes her thoughts more jumbled.

Wanda studies the microwave for so long Nat almost expects to see it fly through the air. Finally she says, “Social work, I think. I could be good at that. I’m a history TA because it’s fascinating, but it’s also a way to connect with the students. When they complain about reading quizzes, I know what they mean.”

Nat considers her. Wanda raises her chin almost in challenge, but not quite; there’s a little tremble that tells her Wanda really wants approval.

“I want to help in permanent ways,” Wanda adds. She clicks her pen a few times. “I think social work would help me do that.”

“Permanence is always a worthwhile goal,” Nat says, then listens to what she just said. She makes a face. “Pretend I didn’t sound fifty just now.”

Wanda laughs. “Don’t worry. I know what you mean.”

____________

 

Now and then Steve will reference something about Pemberley in passing, either about the clothes or the dances or will just put on an awful British accent. He leads into these retellings with, “Remember that time, we were at Pemberley, Nat, remember when.” She always nods and laughs with him; she’s found playing along will make him stop sooner. One time she’d played dumb and made him tell her the entirety of the play again, until he became faux outraged and she had had to tell him she remembered to stop from holding up the entire hallway.

She argues with herself night after night. If it didn’t happen then neither did Sam, but neither did this pain in her chest. Instead of blood it feels as though there’s heartache pumping through her veins.

Steve’s references go from four times a day to two, then to once a week. Every time she just goes along with his story instead of adding details his eyebrows go into concern mode. It’s not that she’s forgotten, or wants to, but. Sometimes it’s easier not to try to remember.

____________

 

Bucky calls her near the beginning of May and asks for her help on the party and she nearly falls out of her chair she’s so happy to _do_ something. She picks up Wanda on the way to Bucky and Steve’s apartment, content to let Wanda talk over the radio about anything she has on her mind.

She pulls up to their apartment and Wanda says, “Oh shit,” and then stammers an apology. Nat waves it away.

“Oh shit is right,” she agrees. She parks and grabs her notebook. “Let’s go de-fuck up this party.”

When Bucky had called earlier, he’d hinted at both a potential problem and a potentially Very Exciting Thing. He’s said it in all caps too, so she’d expected some semblance of Something Big happening when she and Wanda went in. Something other than Bucky chilling in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pajama pants watching The Great British Bake Off.

“Oh hey,” he says casually. “There’s juice, milk, and soda in the fridge.”

“I wish I would’ve known this was a pajama party,” she says, sitting next to him on the couch. “I feel overdressed.”

“It’s always a pajama party here,” Bucky says. Wanda’s still standing awkwardly, staring around at the place. It’s as nicely decorated inside as it is outside. “You’re free to sit, if you’d like,” Bucky adds, and Wanda nods while going over to inspect the photos on the bookshelf.

Nat takes out her notebook and flips to a page near the back. “Okay,” she says. “What’s the play for this party?”

Bucky says, “It’s a surprise,” and winks. Nat tosses a balled up piece of paper at him. “Ouch! Hey!”

“Ouch?” Wanda and Nat say at the same time. Wanda says, “It’s paper,” while Nat tosses another. This one lands in his hair.

“How’re we supposed to help you if this is a surprise,” Nat asks, her voice not making it a question.

Bucky turns the volume down a little. “General ambiance, I guess,” he says. “This is our sixth year dating, I want to make it special.”

A seed of suspicion sprouts in her chest, but she doesn’t voice it aloud just yet. “It’s at his dad’s still, right?” Bucky nods. “Remember how it was for college graduation?”

His eyes brighten immediately. “Perfect. One of our rugby friends is a wizard with lights. Practically a god with lights.”

“I have some reference photos,” Nat says. “Who all’s coming?”

“Family, close friends.” Bucky pauses while Mary and Paul announce who’s going home. “Damn. I liked her. But yeah, close friends, some far friends.”

Wanda, still looking at the photos, asks, “What’s the food plan?”

“Steve’s dad wants to grill,” he says, grinning. “My sister’s helping, so is our rugby team.”

They discuss the merits to and likelihood of Joseph Rogers managing to feed an entire army of people while the GBBO plays in the background. Wanda makes them both laugh with wry comments as Nat takes quick notes of general things, doodling little coat of arms of the everyday objects in the room. She’s just brushing eraser shavings off one of oranges, the TV remote, and a protractor when Wanda exclaims.

“What’s _this?”_ she asks gleefully, snatching the photo up with one hand and her phone with the other. “Here, look,” she says, and hands it to Nat. Bucky crowds her out of curiosity and then gets up for a glass of water.

It’s him and Steve standing in front of the Pemberley gardens in full regency attire. They look a little younger than they are now; the date in the corner puts it at seven years ago. This was right around when they met, then.

“That’s an old one,” Bucky says simply.

Nat hands it back to Wanda, who studies it again and asks, “Did you meet there?”

The corners of his eyes crinkle fondly. “He got in a fight with someone about — corsets, or something. Maria was thiiiis close to kicking him out but I told her I paid double to have me and my boyfriend there, which was a load of bullshit and she knew it, but she must’ve liked the twist in the story.”

Nat glances at Wanda. She looks starstruck. “And you started dating?”

“It took them a little bit,” Nat says. She knows this part too well. “You would not _believe_ the pining.”

Wanda and Bucky look at each other, then at her. Bucky says, “Well. _You_ might.”

She tosses another paper ball at him.

____________

 

They spend almost the entirety of May in Bucky and Steve’s living room grading papers and tests and planning the party whenever Steve’s out of earshot. The third time Bucky wears pajama pants when they arrive leads them to buying three pairs each at Target.

He and Steve laugh when they see the bags. “Here,” Steve says, shaking his head. He shares an amused eye roll with Bucky. “Put them in the guest room.”

Sometimes Nat comes by alone and brings food to replace all the store bought frozen pizzas they eat whenever they come over and, as an apology for being a bit of a dick about Pemberley, she buys Steve a French press coffee maker. Steve pulls her to his side and rests his chin on her head. When she almost breaks down crying, Bucky picks her up and puts her on the couch and Steve tucks a blanket around her. She cries for real now but Steve puts in _Up_ and Bucky makes garlic popcorn and soon they’re a sobbing, snotty mess of people smelling strongly of garlic bread. They wake up in a tangle so bad Nat’s and Bucky’s hair knotted together. Steve almost convinces them both into getting bobs.

She talks herself out of asking Steve how Sam’s doing. She tries not to think about who might understand pining.

Mid May brings a thunderstorm so bad it puts Steve and Bucky out of power for a week. Nat lets them stay with her and, when Wanda stops by to plan the party, they exile Steve to the fire escape.

“What’s the surprise?” Wanda or Nat ask as soon as Steve’s out of earshot.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky always says, smiling.

The third day of no power he finds Nat’s annotated copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ and reads it straight through in one sitting. When they get the call that the lights and water are back on in their apartment, Bucky asks Nat if he can borrow it.

“One condition,” she whispers. Steve smiles at them from the living room so she says “Steve Rogers is an asshole” at the same volume to gauge his reaction. His smile doesn’t change.

Bucky elbows her. “Rude.”

“I wanted to see if he’s listening,” she whispers. “You can borrow it on one condition.”

“I’m not telling you what the surprise is,” he whispers back.

“Tell me if I’m wrong, then.” Nat waits. He shrugs an okay. “Okay. I don’t want to say it outloud, just in case…”

Bucky hands her her notebook from the counter. She rips out a page and writes ARE YOU FINALLY in block letters.

He doesn’t give her time to finish the question. He says, “Yes.”

They have a fervent but mostly silent celebration that Nat thinks will carry over to charades, sex, or one after the other when he and Steve get home. She hugs him and he hugs her back and this time when she cries, it lifts the last remnants of the fog that’s been hanging around since England. Her sprout of suspicion blooms.

“I’m so happy for you!” she whispers.

“You don’t even know—” Bucky starts, then stops and grins in a very contented way. “I can’t say that, I do know. We’ve talked about it. He’ll say yes.”

She hugs him again. “When you know you know.”

“I knew since the first day,” Bucky whispers.

This time she elbows him. “Save it for your vows, you sap,” she says, and he rips out half a page of paper and sets it down gently on her head.

____________

 

Nat finds it after they leave and it feels like a karate kick to the ribs.

Slowly, as if the pages might bite her, she opens the lowest drawer of her bedside table and puts the notebook in and slams it shut.

____________

 

Students are done with finals June 6th and teachers done cleaning and grading June 8th, so naturally Steve and Bucky decide on the weekend _before_ freedom to have their fancy dress outdoor party. Nat really doesn’t know why it had to be June 3nd instead of June 10th. Leave it to them to make things a little more difficult.

Joseph Rogers’ house is both sprawling and cramped, the former from the expansive lawn, the latter from overgrown hedges and flowerbeds. With the lights strung from everything in sight by their rugby friend Thor, though, it looks like a second world where plants are luminous and full even in the afternoon sun. Nat gives Wanda a lift and when they arrive both their jaws drop so quickly they both crack.

“It looks wonderful,” Nat says, awed. They pass beneath candles in mason jars hung from a giant tree. She amends her statement: “It looks _gorgeous.”_

“I feel like we’re in space,” Wanda says. She holds out a hand beneath one of the jars. “Like these are planets and stars and we’re spaceships.”

They go further down the driveway and greet Steve and Bucky by gently elbowing their way through a sea of people. She wants to ask if Steve knows how his life is about to change, but doesn’t. For obvious reasons, but also because she sees some familiar faces who seem like they’re on the wrong side of the Atlantic.

“What’re you doing here?” she asks, laughing, as she hugs Clint and Laura. They both look very good and very odd in their modern formal wear.

Laura winks and says, “If Bucky and Steve offer to pay for our flights, who are we to refuse?”

She’s oddly affronted at that. “He buys you plane tickets, but won’t ever give me gas money?”

“He likes us more,” Clint confides. “He told me once.”

Laura says, “He’s also told us you used to do karate?” Nat groans. Across the way, Steve raises a glass as if he heard and wants to toast her annoyance. “Any chance we might see some?”

She’s wearing a jumpsuit and heels. “It was third grade? I’m wearing heels?” she tries, but she knows what’s coming.

Wanda comes up now and says, “He’s said you can run in them too. And I’ve seen you.”

“Please?” Laura asks. “Just a minute or two.”

“I’ll lend you my shoes,” Clint offers at the same time Wanda says, “Fuck it _up.”_

Nat sighs. “Fine,” she says and, ignoring their cheers, shifts into some stances. She demonstrates on the mason jar tree, rationalizing that she probably won’t hurt it and if she does, a mason jar of fire on her head can’t be the worst thing that’s ever happened to her. She’s gearing up for a roundhouse kick when she slips on the grass.

Someone catches her. She thinks — she thinks she knows these hands. She twists around as best she can to see her catcher’s face.

“Oh,” Nat says. Her voice is very small.

“I see your martial arts training continues to pay off,” Sam Wilson says.

He’s wearing a smile that looks like one he’d given her while lying in her bed and a linen suit that looks like summer came exactly on time. His hands are on her skin where the jumpsuit cutout shows off her back and around her waist where he’d caught her and she just wants. She wants to kiss him. She wants to yell at Steve and Bucky for not warning her, and to yell at him for what he wrote and drew in her notebook. Mostly, though, she wants to be let go.

She taps his arms until he drops them and she steps out of his embrace.

“Natasha,” he says, earnesty in every syllable of her name. “Can we talk?”

____________

 

They go into Joseph’s living room.

Steve and Bucky meet her eyes as she leads Sam inside, but she shakes her head when they mouth _Do you need backup?_ She can handle this.

The living room’s exactly the same as it was the last time she was here. Bookcases fill the room and border the same massive TV Bucky forced them all to watch all of _The Lord of the Rings_ on that one winter break when they got snowed in. Nat makes her way on instinct toward her usual spot on the couch before hesitating, not sure whether she wants to be sitting or standing for this.

She settles on standing near the middle of the carpet and folds her arms. Sam takes in the room a moment, and she silently congratulates herself on choosing the perfect spot. This room is so unlike the grounds at Pemberley. The books make it an entirely different kind of garden.

Sam leans against a bookcase, then crosses his arms, then claps his hands together. Part of her is pleased he seems uncomfortable.

“So,” he says, and she stops counting the fibers in the carpet to look at him. He rubs the back of his neck. “I guess they didn’t tell you I was coming. I … had hoped they would.”

Nat presses her right heel into the carpet, studying how it makes an indent. “They didn’t. I wish they had too.”

He opens his mouth to say something and at the same time she starts to say something and both of them stop immediately. Sam gestures for her to speak and she shakes her head, but then decides to but he’s already trying to say something. The both laugh a little awkwardly.

She holds up a hand. “Count of three?” she says, and he visibly relaxes.

“Sure. Sounds perfect.”

Sam counts them down and says, “You look lovely,” and Nat says, “Why are you here?”

She brushes off the loveliness comment and repeats herself, adding, “We said we weren’t going to make this last. We agreed.”

He’s quiet a moment. “Do you know,” he says slowly, “as soon as I said it, I felt like I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.”

And — _oh._ Nat tamps down the little bit of hope budding in her chest. “Saying it should be a one time thing or sleeping with me in general?”

 _“Natasha,_ of course the first thing,” Sam says, like it’s ridiculous he has to clarify. Like it’s obvious. “The only thing I regret,” and here he takes a step toward her. She unfolds her arms just a little without realizing. “My only regret is leaving before you woke up. I should’ve — explained in person.”

This unfreezes her. “You should have,” she says. “I found your note a week ago. You can’t just. Say those things and then write those things, Sam, that’s not fair.”

“I know.” He rubs his neck again, grimacing. “I know. I didn’t know what to do and I thought you wanted it like that, one and done, and I swear I didn’t come over here with the intention of sweeping you off your feet, I know that’s probably the last—”

“You didn’t?”

“—thing you want right now.” Sam tilts his head to the side, confused. “Wait, what?”

It feels like the sun’s melted and dripped down her cheeks. She so happy Joseph doesn’t have any mirrors in here; she already knows she’s bright red.

“I didn’t — mean to say that,” Nat says lamely. She tightens her ponytail and curses herself. Why’d she put her hair in a ponytail when clearly it should be covering her face until she can’t see and no one can see her. She’d take her hair down to hide, but by this point there’s no way there isn’t a bump from the elastic, and then she’d really lose control of the situation. She drops her hands.

Sam looks like someone just handed him incontrovertible proof that King Arthur existed. “Did you want me to?”

She throws her hands in the air and says, “I don’t know! I knew what I wanted seven weeks ago but that was _seven weeks ago.”_

He takes another step. Nat wishes he’d either come all the way or go back by the bookshelf. It’s too tempting right now to step forward and meet him halfway, and even from here she can see the hope in his eyes.

She wonders a moment what he sees in hers.

“Natasha,” he says, his voice halfway to a whisper. “What’d you want seven weeks ago?”

What did she want. She wanted kisses to her wrist and to talk about her students and to learn about Robin Hood. She wanted to tease him about the crests on his walls, and to see how he’d look with flowers in his beard, and rehearse their lines while knowing her love lines were real and about him. She wanted to see him before the cab came to get them.

“I wanted you to be there when I woke up,” she says softly.

Sam’s about to say something when Bucky pokes his head into the room, flushed and beaming. “Nat — hey Sam — Nat, it’s time.”

He takes her hand and all but runs back outside. Nat glances apologetically over her shoulder, trying not to notice how now Sam looks like someone stole the stars from the sky.

____________

 

In the end, it’s simple.

On the porch, Joseph makes a tearful toast to Sarah Rogers’ memory that leaves no dry eyes and leaves everyone holding a little tighter to each other. “My love,” he says, wiping his eyes, “I wish you could be here for this.”

He goes on a little about her love of Austen’s books and the movies and how she brought Steve and Bucky together and made their family that much wider. Nat takes a sip of champagne and smiles.

Their rugby team takes the mic now and treats them all to a story of Steve and Bucky chasing geese off the field during a rainstorm that left the pitch under two inches of water. Somehow it lead to them losing their shorts from falling in the mud. Bucky kisses Steve on the cheek, laughing, and slips past the team to go inside.

“Which gave us the best team name ever,” one of them says, grinning. She thinks his name is Jim. He announces, “The Howling Commandos crushed it that season,” and the rest of the team cheers so loud Nat thinks the mason jars are in danger of falling out of the tree.

Jim hands her the mic next. “We wanted to thank you all for coming,” Nat says. “I’ve known these idiots for a very long time, and seeing them happy and seeing how loved they are makes every day that much better. I’m truly blessed to have them as friends.”

She pauses, taking a deep breath; she feels all too aware that Sam’s out there listening to what she’s saying. Steve winks at her. “There comes a point in friendships,” she says, watching the door out of the corner of her eye for movement, “in which you look at your friend and think, ‘someone is going to love you so well someday.’”

Now someone’s coming out. Their friends whisper to each other, and she sees Laura kiss Clint softly before leaning against him. Maybe it’s a side effect of being in love, she thinks, that you can recognize the signs saying someone else’s love story is growing exponentially.

“Steve,” Nat says. Wanda hands her a tissue, and she whispers a thank you before dabbing her eyes. She says his name again as the porch door slides open. Steve gasps audibly as Bucky steps out of the house. “Steve, I wanted to thank you. For all the nights we stayed up doing homework in the library for our least favorite classes, for the coffee runs, for the time we went to the last Harry Potter premiere and both sobbed. For reminding me Jane Austen isn’t just books.” She’s crying for real now. She leans on Bucky and one of his tears falls in her hair and Steve, standing at the steps, seems to glow. “But mostly, thank you for letting me see someone love you as much as you deserve to be loved. I love you—” Bucky rubs her back until she can continue. “—so much.”

Nat hands Bucky the mic and, in all his regency glory, he takes it.

Steve whispers, “Bucky, are you — is this,” and Bucky whispers, “Is that still okay?”

Steve nods so hard Nat’s neck hurts for him. “That’s very okay,” Steve says. He wipes his eyes on his sleeves. Bucky offers a handkerchief from his tailcoat, smiling. Steve laughs tearily. “Very, very okay.”

“Steve,” Bucky says into the mic. Steve nods again, crying openly. Bucky sweeps some of the tears off his face, gently touching their foreheads together. “Don’t cry, love, I haven’t asked you anything yet.”

Steve whispers so soft she would’ve missed it if the mic hadn’t picked it up. “Ask me, Buck.”

Bucky takes a deep breath and says, “Steve, you are too generous to trifle with me.” Steve laughs so loudly the speakers squeal.

“Sorry! Sorry, everyone,” he says. He kisses Bucky soft and slow.

Bucky elbows him and says, “I practiced this,” and Steve motions for him to continue. He takes Steve’s hand and places it on his chest over his heart. “If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.”

Then Bucky goes on one knee. Steve looks at him like he’s the most stable and honest person he’s ever known and loved. Bucky says, “Will you marry me?”

And Steve almost doesn’t let him finish before saying, “Yes.”

____________

 

The Howling Commandos clear a space in the grass and lay down a dance floor. Nat isn’t surprised when the first song that plays is Single Ladies.

“I liked it,” Bucky says, bringing Steve to floor. Steve embraces him to the extent that they’re slow dancing, which would be annoying if she didn’t love them and if they hadn’t just gotten engaged.

She watches Steve whisper something in his ear. Bucky’s blush spreads over his entire face.

Nat goes in search of a drink.

“Natasha!” Laura calls, sitting at one of the tables they set up last night. “Come sit with me, my husband abandoned me to dance.”

Nat redirects her path and sits. They spend a pleasant few minutes judging Clint’s dancing before what she said sinks in.

“Husband?” Nat asks, nearly dropping her drink. “You got married?”

“About six,” Laura says, then pauses. “Wait. That’s not right, Cooper’s seven now. Eight years ago? Give or take?”

Now she does drop her drink. Laura laughs and hands her napkins, and she takes them with an apology. “You have a child?”

“Two.” Laura looks amused at how surprised Nat is by this. She pats her stomach and smiles, and her laugh lines look so lovely. “And one on the way.”

“Oh!” Nat says, speechless. “I’m so happy for you! Congratulations!”

Laura beams. “Thanks. If you’re free at all this summer, I could use a babysitter. We just moved onto a farm upstate.”

Nat considers this. “If I say yes, does that make me the favorite aunt?”

“No promises,” she says.

“I accept.” They watch the dancers for a few seconds. “Wait, how does—” Nat makes an all-encompassing gesture. “—all of this work with Pemberley?”

“We’re daytime employees,” Laura says. “Cooper and Lila are in school, so we have it worked out with Maria. She’s usually very good at fixing the schedule in our favor.”

This is the first genuinely nice thing about Maria that she’s heard from a Pemberley employee. Guilt makes its way icy cold down her back, stopping when it runs into the band of her bra.

Wait.

Laura covers a laugh as Nat twists around, fishing for the ice cube. It’s half melted by the time she snags it. Someone behind her laughs too, and Nat says, “Wanda, you’re helping me grade my finals.”

Wanda sinks into one of the chairs, smirking. “You can’t prove anything.”

Nat points out that she has a witness, plus a newly engaged friend who’s sort of her boss on her side, and Wanda sticks out her tongue. A swell of affection for her rises in Nat’s chest.

“You’re going to be a brilliant social worker,” she says. Wanda’s eyes widen. “Let me know if you need me to be a reference.”

“Thank you,” Wanda says, and Nat smiles and takes a sip of what’s left of her drink.

____________

 

It isn’t until Wanda goes dancing that Nat feels comfortable enough to ask.

“Did you meet at Pemberley?” And then, when Laura narrows her eyes in mild confusion, she clarifies. “You and Clint.”

Laura smiles at a memory. “I was an exchange student at his high school. We dated a bit, broke up, and then Maria hired us both a few years later.”

“Huh,” Nat says. “That’s some luck.”

She shrugs. “Sort of. We kept in touch over the years. He’s the one who told me about Pemberley, said he would help me get a job if I wanted. Sometimes you have to manufacture your own luck.”

Sam and Thor from the rugby team are dancing to Cotton Eye Joe over by the speakers. He must feel her eyes on him, because he glances up and meets her gaze. She nods at him. He cautiously nods back.

She turns her attention back to her drink, fervently hoping Laura won’t say anything but dearly wanting her to at the same time. “How do you do that? My dad raised me on the idea that luck is all well and good, but you have to be sure of everything before you do anything. He always said not to rely on luck or we’d be a society with our heads in the clouds.”

“He sounds paranoid,” Laura notes.

Nat laughs. “He was, but he was a good guy. He died in a car crash when I was in college. Swerved trying to avoid a jaywalker in the middle of the lane.”

Laura slides her hand across the table, palm up. Nat takes it, swallowing around a lump in her throat. Laura doesn’t offer condolences, for which Nat is grateful. She’s made her peace with it.

“I’ve always wanted permanent things,” Nat says softly. Laura flips their hands over, massaging Nat’s palm. She squeezes her finger to say thanks. “I don’t know how else to do things. How do I make things permanent?”

Laura flicks her gaze over Nat’s shoulder and says, “Sometimes you can start with a dance.”

Nat looks behind her too. Thor nudges Sam, and they both wave back. Laura waves their hands. It’s hard to tell, but Nat thinks Sam’s smiling the way that makes his eyes crinkle.

“You know?” she asks, because it has to be asked.

Laura’s mouth quirks. “I’d be blind not to. He was very quiet once you left.”

“We said,” Nat says slowly, weighing the words as she says them, “that we wouldn’t continue.”

“You don’t have to,” Laura replies. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“What would you do, if you were me?”

She thinks someone calls “Nat!” behind her, but when she checks it’s just the mason glasses bumping in the tree.

“I think,” Laura says, jerking her head for someone on the dance floor to come over. “When the nice young man comes over, I’d ask him for a dance.”

“Oh Laura,” Nat whispers. She all but hunches over the table. “You didn’t—”

And then: “Natasha?”

In the late evening light, he’s lit up so beautifully by the candles in the tree. He just about takes her breath away.

“Sam,” Nat says. His name comes out a little breathy, and now his eyes are definitely crinkled. It makes her feel like she’s running out of ground in the best way. She, Steve, and Bucky went cliff jumping in Mexico spring break of their senior year, and falling arm in arm with into the water had made her feel larger and smaller than her body. Standing before him now feels a lot like that. Like she’s at the edge now, about to jump in.

Laura gently kicks her thigh. She makes a little _go on_ gesture.

Nat holds out her hand, her heart pounding. “Would you want to dance?”

“I’d love to,” Sam says. He takes her hand, laces their fingers together, and Nat steps off the edge into the dance.

____________

 

He’s staying with Steve and Bucky, so when she offers him her couch to crash on, it’s because she knows what their friends are likely to be doing when they get home.

“They’re loud,” she says bluntly, when Sam asks her to explain.

He says, “Ah.”

Laura gives her an extra squeeze when she hugs her goodbye. “Good luck,” she whispers into Nat’s ear, and Nat whispers back “I’m working on it.”

She thanks Joseph for hosting and he tells her if she wants to use his house to get engaged to this fine man next to her she’s more than welcome. Nat blushes. Joseph kisses the top of her head.

Steve and Bucky corner her in the living room, surprisingly handling their alcohol very well. When she mentions this, they snort in unison.

“You know we can’t get drunk, right?” Steve says. Bucky wraps an arm around his waist and kisses his cheek.

Nat says, “I think that’s an urban legend,” and they both literally guffaw. She smirks at them.

Steve calms down first. “Nat, are you sure? He could always stay here.”

“I have some questions, I think,” she says. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Bucky kisses her left cheek and Steve kisses her right. “Be safe,” Steve says.

“Text when you get home?” Bucky asks.

She nods. “Wanda’s taking you both to your apartment with your car,” she says. “Have her text someone too when she gets home.”

Steve says, “Will do,” and then says, “Do you like my ring? It’s so shiny.”

“It’s very shiny,” Nat laughs. “Maybe now you won’t need to borrow my car all the time.”

Steve lets go of Bucky and holds her tight. She closes her eyes, breathing in the smell of him, wondering if he caught the subtext.

“I’ll always need you, Nat,” he whispers. She holds him tighter, using his shirt to blotch at her eyes. He lets go of her and she takes a shaky breath. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Nat says.

And she and Sam get in the car.

____________

 

It’s 1:35 AM when they get back.

“I’m going to shower,” Nat says, grabbing her pajamas from her room. She gestures vaguely around the apartment, pointing out the fridge and the couch and the TV. “Feel free to make yourself at home.”

She leaves Sam in the middle of the room and shuts the bathroom door before realizing that, maybe, she should’ve gotten him sheets for the couch first.

The water feels good on her skin. They’d talked a little on the drive back, enough to mean she needs some space to figure it all out before saying anything else. She lingers in the shower longer than she needs to before putting pajamas on and stepping back out into the living room.

Sam on the couch, glowing in the light of a history channel program. Nat pauses, surprised; he doesn’t look out of place in her apartment. She’d thought maybe Pemberley would come with him, but in his pajama pants — birds? Birds — he seems like he should be there. Like it’s right for him to be there.

She leans against the door frame in fear of ruining the spell. But then he looks up at her, smiling, until the TV says something about Robin Hood. He frowns and lifts up blankets for the remote.

“What’s the face?” she asks.

“That was,” he says, shaking a blanket out over his head. The remote bounces off his face. “Entirely incorrect. None of that was accurate. Why is your programming like this?”

Nat sits on the arm of the couch. “You’re blaming me for the history channel?”

“I have to blame someone,” Sam says. “And I’m not from here, so clearly—”

“—I’m the obvious choice, I see,” Nat finishes.

Sam’s next breath is sharp and loud enough she can hear it over the TV. She plays it back in her head.

“That’s not — you can ignore that,” she says hurriedly. “That’s not what I meant.”

He says, quiet, “Maybe we should talk some more?”

“Maybe we should,” Nat says, and jumps up and goes into her room.

“Natasha, wait,” Sam calls, stumbling after her. He braces himself in the doorway.

Nat looks at him. “I was coming back,” she says. She opens the bottom drawer of her bedside table. “I had to get something.”

“Oh,” he says. She hands him the notebook, and he flips through the pages until he finds why she had to get it. “Right.”

“Right,” she agrees. And then, because she can, she reads it outloud. “‘I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.’”

Sam trails his fingers over the writing. “It’s true,” he says quietly.

“Why would you write that,” she says, a little helpless. “Why would you say that after we agreed not to.”

He says, “I felt as though we broke up before we started. And I wanted to know … I had hoped that you felt the same as I did.”

Nat shakes her head impatiently. “Not that. I did my thesis on Austen, I know why this quote is important. Why would you tell me you loved me when we agreed not to?”

Her whole body is shaking slightly, not just her head. They’re so close to figuring this out. She moves toward him and he reaches for her but stops.

They’re so, so close.

“Sam,” she whispers. “Are you in love with me?”

What he must have thought. He’d written that seven weeks ago. Seven whole weeks in which she tried to forget, or at least tried not to remember. He probably thought she’d found it ages ago and decided to ignore it and then done his best to move on the way she had.

Sam had leapt so long ago. She sees this so clearly as he looks at her now.

She takes a step and meets him halfway.

“Natasha,” he says softly. He lifts a hand to her face and she kisses his palm. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

____________

 

When her alarm goes off, Sam’s there. It’s the morning and neither of them got enough sleep but it’s morning and he’s next to her, rubbing his eyes against the darkness and fumbling to make the alarm stop beeping

“I think I’m a little in love with you,” she says, almost shy.

Sam yawns and pulls her onto his chest. “Really?”

“Yes.” She kisses his shoulder and jaw and mouth. “Here and here and here.”

He runs his hands up her sides and says, “I don’t want to make you late for work.”

Nat kisses him again, long and slow, and he bites her bottom lip gently. “You won’t.”

____________

 

She’s seven minutes late.

Wanda stops by with coffee and enough dripping insinuations that her entire first class has some idea of what happened that morning. She fields questions about it all day, telling one class she got abducted by aliens and had to fight her way out, another that she moonlights as a secret agent and didn’t get enough sleep to get to her day job on time.

None of them, besides maybe Peter, buy it. But, as she tells Wanda in the break room, at least it’s better than actually telling them what she was doing.

“Who you were doing, more like,” Wanda snickers as the door opens.

“Shut up,” Nat says, smiling reluctantly as she glances at the door. And freezes.

Their favorite Peter says, “Holy shit.”

“Uh,” Nat says.

“Sorry for swearing! Wow I didn’t — I need help on this history assignment and Mr. Rogers said hey kid it’s okay I’m busy but Wanda’s in the break room if you knock you’re free to go in but I forgot to knock! I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“Hey,” Wanda says soothingly. “It’s fine, it happens. Why don’t we go work in this in the computer lab?”

“Okay.” Peter pulls on his hair so hard Nat’s surprised he doesn’t have a bald patch when he takes his hand away. “I’m so sorry Ms. R, I didn’t mean to I promise.”

“It’s really okay, Peter,” Nat say, trying to sound warm and understanding. “Honestly, don’t worry about it. I know I can trust you not to say anything.”

Wanda ushers Peter out and mouths and apology that Nat accepts with a sip of coffee.

The rest of the day goes surprisingly smoothly. She enlists Peter’s help to spread misinformation across her classes in the hopes that coming from a peer it’ll be more believable. By fifth period they think she’s a pizza delivery driver, which is fine enough. Now she has a bribe for them to do homework until school actually lets out.

____________

 

It’s the last week of classes so when Steve leans against her door during last period, she’s less annoyed than usual. Most of these students know by now that Steve’s engaged to the still-elusive Bucky; they’ve come up with several conspiracy theories to explain his absence from school.

“He’s gotta visit, doesn’t he?” their favorite Peter says. He swivels to face the front of the room. “Ms. R, Bucky’s a real person, right? He’s not a deep-freeze secret assassin right?”

Nat blinks. “No, he’s not.”

Peter fist pumps and calls across the room, “Told you MJ!”

MJ rolls her eyes. “And you believe her? That’s how they get you, Parker.”

Steve comes into the room at that exact moment. He sits on Nat’s desk, slack jawed, as Nat has her students list their favorite explanations for why Bucky hasn’t shown up yet.

“None of those are right,” Steve says, fifteen minutes before the bell rings. The class groans in disappointment. “The secret agent one was closest though, and I know he’d love to read these if any of you wrote them up.”

They brighten at that. Nat follows Steve out of the classroom while her students start planning their stories.

“What’s up?” she asks, resting against a locker so she can still monitor her room.

Steve puts his hands in his pockets and says, “I had a guest speaker who wanted to talk to your class about Jane Austen.”

“Let me guess,” she says, hearing footsteps coming toward them.

“Hey,” Sam says. He and Wanda high five and turn to Steve and Nat. The corners of his eyes crinkle when he sees her. “Ready for me?”

Nat says, “As always,” and kisses him.

“IS THAT HIM?”

Something crashes to the floor in the classroom and they break apart.

The four of them run into the room, certain they’re about to find the room in flames or sucked up by a very localized tornado. What they find instead is a mess of desks that clearly just toppled over.

“Holy shit!” Peter says.

“Is anyone hurt?” Nat asks, scanning her students. She feels Steve next to her doing the same thing. “Is everyone okay?”

“No one died,” MJ says. “I call that a win.”

Nat says, “I think we could be aiming higher,” and Steve nods in agreement. “What were you all doing?”

“Building a tower,” Peter says. “Duh. Is that him?”

“Why?” Nat asks.

“Because we don’t know him and he’s standing with his hand on your back,” Peter says in a matter of fact way. Nat drops her face into her hands. He says, “Wait. Waaaait no shit I’m so sorry I promise I didn’t say anything all day! I tried I was keeping a secret Ned even asked Peter why is your face so weird do you have a frog in your mouth and I said no this is my face and he kept asking but I didn’t crack, I swear, it was just right now no other time.”

“So what you’re saying is,” MJ says, “this is the reason you’re late?”

“MJ,” Nat says helplessly. Her student raises an eyebrow, daring her to lie. “He wanted to show me his Jane Austen presentation before he had to teach you all.”

Steve busts out laughing to her left. Sam rubs her back in apology, then claps his hands together. She smiles at him sheepishly.

“Right,” Sam says. “Who knows what about Jane Austen?”

____________

 

Steve sends her a text that night. _Jane Austen presentation? Is that what you call it?_

 _At least I can separate sex and charades,_ she replies.

He sends her a middle finger emoji and says, _you promised not to mock us about that._

_You promised it was a convention._

Steve’s reply comes with a plethora of middle finger emojis. An army of them. She laughs and shows Sam. _Are you mad tho._

Sam rests his chin on her shoulder sleepily. “Are you?”

Nat holds her phone so he can easily see it. _No_ , she sends, and Sam hums against her neck. _Not at all_.

________________________________________________

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was influenced by Austenland by Shannon Hale, AKA why I got into Pride and Prejudice to begin with
> 
> CeeCee provided the beautiful art, and I (YourPalYourBuddy) did the words :) 
> 
> AO3 is glitching and won't let me embed my links, but CeeCee is downwarddnaspiral on tumblr and I'm weneverfreeze. Come say hi! :)
> 
> My very amazing beta, Skatzaa, is also on tumblr (and has a plethora of good fics to check out too) so be sure to send her some love
> 
> Thank you for reading!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Certain Step Toward Falling in Love artwork for the Cap RBB](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14809061) by [OriginalCeenote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/pseuds/OriginalCeenote)




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